George Lucas wanted somebody, anybody, else to direct The Phantom Menace
Ron Howard has had an interesting directing career. From huge blockbuster hits such as Apollo 13 to family favorites like How the Grinch Stole Christmas to cinematographic and biographic masterpiece A Beautiful Mind, his career has been nothing short of eccentric and diverse. A little known fact about Ron Howard, however, was that he was one of a few directors to have been asked to direct The Phantom Menace.In a discussion on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Howard discussed being confronted by George Lucas to direct The Phantom Menace. As well, he was the third director that Lucas had asked.
Ron Howard has had an interesting directing career. From huge blockbuster hits such as Apollo 13 to family favorites like How the Grinch Stole Christmas to cinematographic and biographic masterpiece A Beautiful Mind, his career has been nothing short of eccentric and diverse. A little known fact about Ron Howard, however, was that he was one of a few directors to have been asked to direct The Phantom Menace.
In a discussion on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Howard discussed being confronted by George Lucas to direct The Phantom Menace. As well, he was the third director that Lucas had asked.
“[George Lucas] didn’t necessarily want to direct them. He told me he had talked to Robert Zemeckis, Steven Spielberg, and me. I was the third one he spoke to. They all said the same thing: “George, you should do it!” I don’t think anybody wanted to follow-up that act at the time. It was an honor, but it would’ve been too daunting.”
While we have to live in the world we’re given, I’d give a fair amount to live in a universe where Stephen Spielberg directed The Phantom Menace. George Lucas has already expressed his disdain over directing the prequels, which came as no surprise to most. There’s even a rumor that David Lynch was up to direct Empire Strikes Back, which would’ve ended up being the most experimental sci-fi title of the time.
What would have any of these directors’ versions of The Phantom Menace look like, we’ll never know. What we do know is that we live in a universe that had Episode 1 directed by George Lucas, and we live with that scar everyday.